Strangler Fig Pattern
Also written as Strangler Pattern, Strangler Fig, Monolith to Microservices, Monolith Migration
A way to replace an old system gradually: new and rewritten pieces are built alongside it, traffic moves over piece by piece, and the old system shrinks until it can be switched off. The name comes from a vine that grows around a tree and eventually replaces it.
Think of it like
Renovating a hotel floor by floor while guests keep staying, instead of closing it for two years.
Junior or senior?
Most real modernisation work looks like this.
Senior sounds like
Can describe how they chose which piece to move first, and how the old and new systems ran side by side.
Ask them
“On your modernisation project, which part did you move off the old system first, and why that one?”
Reading Strangler Fig Pattern on a resume
- Common
- Strangler Fig Pattern narrows the field but doesn't prove depth on its own. The junior-versus-senior contrast above is what separates one candidate from another.
Sourcing for Strangler Fig Pattern
Every way it's written
("Strangler Fig Pattern" OR "Strangler Pattern" OR "Strangler Fig" OR "Monolith to Microservices")Paste into LinkedIn Recruiter, Naukri or your ATS. Combine with a job title and location.
Wider net, with accepted substitutes
("Strangler Fig Pattern" OR "Strangler Pattern" OR "Strangler Fig" OR "Monolith to Microservices" OR "Monolith Migration")Includes skills a hiring manager would usually accept instead. Use it when the exact search runs dry.
Job titles to search alongside it
Backend Engineer · Backend Developer · Backend Software Engineer · Server Side Engineer · API Developer
Where this talent works in India — Backend & Distributed Systems
Target companies with high transaction volume or hard latency budgets — payments, commerce, trading and global SaaS. Scale, not stack, is what separates a real senior backend engineer here.
For example: Flipkart, PhonePe, Razorpay, Zerodha, Groww, Zoho, Freshworks, Atlassian.